Rise to the challenge: learning AI
14 September 2026
We visit a Nelson programme helping to demystify AI.
Rise to the challenge: becoming an author
Chris Hardy walked away from a high-flying but highly stressful life to become a children's book author.
Chris Hardy has never been short of a bright idea.
The ad-man-turned-entrepreneur has thrown himself into everything from artificial intelligence and audio technology to corporate software and handcrafted stationery. He’s launched global businesses, rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s biggest talents, and his ventures have featured on the pages of Forbes and The New York Times.
But coming up with the next big thing can take its toll – and after decades of late nights, long-haul travel and relentless hustle, the Auckland father of two found himself running on empty.
“Mentally I was in quite a dark place and then physically I started getting sick. I’d be in the supermarket dry-retching; my doctor suggested I was heading for stomach ulcers,” Chris says.
Chris Hardy walked away from a high-pressure career to follow a dream of writing books for kids. Photo by Tony Nyberg.
A long stint in the States doing demos and raising capital for audio start-up Wing Acoustics was the tipping point.
“I’d been working massive hours for decades, was missing my family terribly and felt like I was losing my mojo. My brain and body were both telling me my time was up, so I called up my wife Deb and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to quit my job, I want to sell our home and move into an apartment.’ She was like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
In hindsight he admits he could have handled it better. “I didn’t warm her up to any of that – I just dumped it on her in one phone call.”
Luckily though “she’s an amazing woman”, and after Chris returned home they put the large family home of 23 years on the market and downsized to the beach. Six weeks later he felt like a new man.
“I felt this huge weight lift off my shoulders. It sounds trite but I began noticing the birds singing again, and I started playing music and cooking for the first time in ages. Deb and I had a complete role reversal. She got a full-time job and I stayed home making the kids’ lunches and helping them with their studies. Then after four or five months I thought, ‘What am I going to do now?’”
An eight-month landscaping project on a friend’s property was a game changer. “I must have planted close to 4,000 plants – working outside completely healed me.”
As Chris’ physical and mental health returned, so too did his big ideas.
Chris has tapped into his creativity to come up with imaginative children's stories. Photo by Tony Nyberg.
“A mate of mine Steve Dunlop and I started our agency back in the 90s, and back then we’d dabbled in writing some kids’ books but never finished them. I gave him a call and said, ‘Hey, I’m keen to have another crack at those books’ and he said, ‘Great, let’s do it!’”
They joined forces with Chris’ oldest friend, Graeme (Fid) Horne, and formed Gorilla Books Interstellar Empire Corporation Limited. So far, the trio have created about 15 children’s books, some of which they’ve launched on Amazon.
“We’ve made picture books for two to five-year-olds, rhyming books for six to eight-year-olds and then some really crazy books for eight- to 11-year-olds.”
One is an 180-page graphic novel about two boys teaming up for a school science project. One loves zoos and the other loves space, so they hitch a ride on a rocket to Mars to build a zoo.
“That one’s aimed at boys who are reluctant readers. We worked on it for about 18 months and had this test group of kids who we’d send our drafts to. Kids can be pretty brutal with their feedback; we rebuilt that book from scratch maybe six times!”
They’ve also recently finished Charlie Swam Across the World (a rhyming book about the adventures of a kid who swims from the North Pole to the South Pole), and another about a boy who grows a pumpkin the size of a house and it becomes his best friend.
“We’ve got so many books to get out of our heads. Sometimes when the three of us get together to brainstorm, I have to shut my laptop and walk out the door because my stomach is hurting so much from laughing – and that’s a pretty radical change from where I was at three years ago. I hate to think what would have happened if I’d have just kept going.”
It’s been a tough journey back but now Chris says he’s in his ‘happy place’. Turns out laughter really is the best medicine.
“The whole idea behind forming Gorilla Books Interstellar Empire Corporation Limited is to make kids laugh their socks off. That’s what I did with Dr. Seuss when I was young, and that’s what my son Louie did with Captain Underpants – and that’s what got us both interested in reading.
“If writing kids’ books is all I do for the rest of my life, I’ll be in heaven.”
This story is from the Spring 2026 issue of AA Directions magazine.
